Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I contain multitudes. Next time you piss me off, I’m taking you up on this roof and forcing you to come for me again.
Noah’s cheeks flare pink the moment he receives my message.
Fuck, he is so hot.
His skin looks like porcelain when he’s blushing, and his hair falls in messy dark slashes around his head. It’s making my cock stir just watching the way his tank top moves as he shuts off his phone screen and shoves it into his pocket.
He shoves back his chair and gets up to leave.
As he walks off, he doesn’t meet my eye.
So goddamn easy to fuck with you.
I’m fully hard now, and I’m really going to need to find a way to take care of that.
Luckily, Roman gets a phone call and heads off into the yard speaking softly in Russian, and I’m left by myself on the far end of the dining table.
Noah left one thing behind on the dining table.
His leather-bound planner notebook is still sitting there, open to a page that outlines this week’s schedule.
I glance over it.
His neat handwriting sticks out to me at the top of today’s entry.
Loading Dock, Colossus, 11 p.m.
Loading dock?
What the fuck would Noah be doing at a loading dock behind a dining hall, that late at night? Colossus is closed by then, and I definitely don’t think he’s planning some sort of society event back there.
This must have to do with Roman.
And there’s no shot it’s legal.
You’re making me very curious now, Noah. And I’m going to find out exactly what’s going down tonight.
5
Noah
My shoes crunch over the fine gravel behind Colossus.
The loading dock is so quiet that every step I take, I feel like someone is listening.
I’ve felt like that all week, actually.
Like there was a pair of eyes on me.
Paranoia because I think Torin’s watching me, or because of what I’m about to do for Roman? No goddamn clue.
The crickets and the low buzz of the street lamp are the only sounds in the air. I sure as fuck haven’t been behind Colossus dining hall very much during my time on the Crimson campus. Back here, there are two big, white semi trucks that are empty, parked beneath the tall lamp post, but there’s not much else in sight. Tall, green trees line the far edge of the small parking lot, and I’m leaning against the trunk of one of them now, staying in the dark.
I scan around for a security camera. I see only one, but it’s pointing toward the white trucks, in the opposite direction of where I’m standing.
It’s strange seeing the campus like this. At this time of night during the regular school year, there would usually be the occasional student walking back to their dorm, but in summer, everything is emptier by now.
As I walked past the stone buildings on the way here, I almost felt like Crimson College was a ghost town, lit only by the occasional glow of the outdoor lanterns and posts.
I keep my head on a swivel.
Where the fuck is Roman’s cousin?
Roman told me very little about the guy.
His name is Maks Petrov, apparently.
And he works with Roman’s mafia side of the family in… some capacity.
That’s all I know.
My phone says it’s four minutes past when he was supposed to show up, and whatever trade I’m making tonight is supposed to happen in another minute.
“Any fucking second now,” I whisper under my breath, clenching my fist and then letting it go.
I see a figure coming toward me from the dark end of the parking lot and I straighten my spine.
Finally.
The guy who shows up actually does look a lot like Roman. He’s not nearly as tall or as thickly muscled, and he has about half of the amount of tattoos that Roman does, but his hair is dark, too, and cut short on the sides and longer on the top.
He’s wearing a similar jacket to the one Roman wears a lot in the winter, with denim on the outside and some sort of fuzzy fleece on the inside of its popped collar. It isn’t exactly cold out, but the jacket is stylish, and that’s probably the point.
There are two other men behind him.
Roman didn’t mention that any other men would be here. But I suppose it makes sense that mafia types never like to move alone.
“Taking this for?” he asks me.
“Roman Petrov,” I tell him.
His cousin doesn’t respond for a moment, looking down at a box that one of the other guys is holding.
“Good, good,” he finally says.
A man of few words like Roman, too.
The other guy hands him the box and he brings out a knife to cut open the tape at the top of it. He rips the cardboard open, looking inside, then nodding. Something about the way they’re doing it makes my hair stand on end.